And, like new UAB President Ray Watts before him, Vickers already has strong ties to the school.

Here's what you need to know about the man who will now occupy one of the most critical positions in Birmingham:

Vickers, 53, is an Alabama native, who was born in Demopolis and grew up in Huntsville and Tuscaloosa. He joined the UAB faculty in 1994 and directed the school's section of gastrointestinal surgery from 2000 to 2006. He currently serves as the chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

While at UAB, Vickers was also a senior scientist with the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center and an associate scientist with the Gene Therapy Center. After leaving UAB in 2006 to become Minnesota's surgery department chairman, he continued to collaborate with UAB faculty. In fact, I previously wrote about a joint Minnesota and UAB project he's involved in that calls for the creation of a center to address health care disparities among African-American men.

Vickers earned his bachelor's and medical degrees from Johns Hopkins University and completed surgical training there. He completed two summer post-graduate research fellowships with the National Institutes of Health, which has continuously funded him since 1994. He's also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Vickers' new duties will involve leading the UAB med school's main Birmingham campus and the regional campuses in Montgomery, Huntsville and Tuscaloosa. He will be part of joint operating leadership team with UAB Health System CEO Will Ferniany and University of Alabama Health Services Foundation President James Bonner. That team steers operations and finances of all UAB Hospital and ambulatory services.

Dr. Anupam Agarwal has served as interim UAB med school dean since Watts became university president in February and will resume his role as director of the division of nephrology and vice chair for research in the department of medicine.

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